There is a crime in progress in Providence: Vincent Cianci is running for mayor, and, as of last week, he was winning.So call 911?Maybe not, if you live in Providence or you just happen to be passing through. That’s because the union representing the police officers who might be coming to help wants the Providence police force to be controlled by a twice-convicted criminal.

In fact, both the police and firefighters unions in Providence have endorsed Cianci in the three-way race for mayor of the capital city.It sounds like another Rhode Island bad joke, but it’s not.The men and women who enforce the law in Providence are recommending that a crook be the mayor of their city. The officers of the law want to be led by a lawbreaker. The man with the badge is backing the man who’s been in the can.People with arrest powers want a twice-convicted felon calling the shots. They want a felon to appoint their chief; they’re hoping a crook will name a city solicitor and run the law department.

The cops’ Most Wanted Man is one with a record.Cianci is not funny anymore; he’s leading in the polls.Whom should you call instead of 911?

Call AAA.Call the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence. Call the Democratic State Committee. Call your parish priest and the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, the bishop of Providence, the Rhode Island Board of Rabbis, the Providence Rotary, the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. attorney, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Drug EnforcementAdministration and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Call the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Service Employees International Union and the United Nurses and Allied Professionals.Call the Rhode Island Boys and Girls Clubs, Trinity Repertory, Gamm Theatre, 2nd Story Theatre, the Unitarians, the Tea Party, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, the Lions Club, the Kiwanis, the League of Women Voters, the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, the Republican Party, House of Hope, Crossroads, Channel 12, Leadership Rhode Island, the Young Democrats, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, Rhode Island Public Radio and talk radio.

Call Verizon, Cox and Sprint. Call Lifespan and Care New England and all of the hospitals. Call the Visiting Nurses, the Ironworkers, the Steelworkersand the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. Call Gov. Lincoln Chafee, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed. Call the Providence Bruins, The Providence Journal, the Rhode Island State Police. Call the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts.

In fact, call the Fraternal Order of Police and the Firefighters Union, and tell them it’s not too late to go straight.But do something.

Whether you live in Providence or not, Rhode Island’s capital is too important for its residents, as well as for the rest of Rhode Island, to stay silent. It’s time to speak up. Tell everyone to stand up and to be counted, to raise a chorus that can be heard in every precinct and ward in the city of Providence, in every city and town hall in Rhode Island, that we do not want Vincent Cianci ever again to operate our capital city as a criminal enterprise.

Should you call 911 in the event of an emergency?Maybe. But if a Providence policeman or a Providence policewoman answers the call, tell him or her not to bring in the man their union wants as the next mayor.Then call the Rhode Island Expenditure Council, Operation Clean Government and Common Cause.

And all of us, let’s call on our own common sense.

Brian C. Jones is a book author, freelance writer and former Providence Journal reporter.

"Shippwrekked (BR15-108'') (acrylic on fabric), by Brent Ridge, in show "Liz Gargas and Brent Ridge,'' at the New Art Center, Newton, Mass., March 4-April 10. The gallery says that Mr. Ridge "operates in a land of abstraction rooted in appropriation, landscape, and post-industrial aesthetics''

"Smoke" by Lisa Oppenheim

"Smoke'' (installation view, two-channel video, looped), by LISA OPPENHEIM, in the "Film as Medium and Metaphor'' show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Mass.

"The parody trailer by comedy network Above Average explores a world in which the dedicated Spotlight team finishes their work on sexual abuse in the Catholic church and investigates what else is wrong with Boston: everything."

Newport

'Better Angels: Firefighters of 9/11,' by Dawn Howkinson

'Better Angels: Firefighters of 9/11,' by Dawn Howkinson Siebel, at the Wood Museum, Springfield, Mass through July 10, 2016

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"Saturday, March 21 (1965). Afternoon. Taken on my arrival in Selma {Ala, at the Brown Chapel area," by JAMES H. BARKER

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"Consumable Sugarhouse,''

"Consumable Sugarhouse,'' in Norwich, Vt.

“A sap run is the sweet good-bye of winter”

"Window 60 Autumn,'' by Maira Reinbergs

"Window 60 Autumn,'' by Maira Reinbergs in the "Color Passages'' show at ArtProv gallery, Providence, through Feb. 17.

"Hydrogen 1,'' by Sarah Hulsey, in her show "Schemata"

"Hydrogen 1,'' by Sarah Hulsey, in her show "Schemata,'' at Chandler Gallery, Cambridge, Mass., through March 11.

An arrogant plutocrat for the masses; bees imperiled

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"Frog Prince,'' by MAXFIELD PARRISH, at the show "The Power of Print,'' at the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, N.H., through Jan. 10. Mr Parrish did much of his work in New England at the artists' colony in Cornish, N.H.

"Whale's Jaw, Dogtown,''

"Whale's Jaw, Dogtown,'' from the archives of the Cape Ann Museum, in Gloucester.

Mornings in Little Compton

by Lydia Davison Whitcomb

Mornings in Little Compton

by Lydia Davison Whitcomb

Colored Stone History

by Lydia Davison Whitcomb

"Unihemispheric Existence''

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"Physicality'' (photography, oil, narrative text and resin on panel), by SHERRY KARVER, in her show "Objects of Affection,'' at Lanoue Gallery, Boston, through Oct. 31.

"Dream Work of Thomas Street''

(acrylic on panel), by SHAWN KENNEY

"Karl with Honeybears"

"Karl with Honeybears'' (oil on canvas), by DAVID PETTIBONE, at the Corey Daniels Gallery,

"smoke"

"Smoke'' (installation view, two-channel video, looped), by LISA OPPENHEIM, in the "Film as Medium and Metaphor'' show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Mass.

"Elevation'' (acryllic on canvas), by Diane Novetsky, in her show 'EARTHSHIFTER

"Nero''

"Nero'' (Marquina marble), by PAUL BLOCH

"New Orleans Sketchbook, March 1-17, 2007, Lower Ninth Ward

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"Siberia Imagined and Reimagined"

Photo in Krasnoskamensk, Russia, March 2006, by SERGEY MAXIMISHIN, in the show "Siberia Imagined and Reimagined,'' at the Museum of Russian Icons, Clinton, Mass., through Jan. 10.

"Arcology'' (detail; gouache and Lascaux acrylics on archival papers), by Ilona Anderson, in her show "Arcology,'' at Kingston Gallery, Boston.

"Resonance: book in time II''

"Resonance: book in time II'' show at Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, Mass., Dec. 6-Jan. 16. It's a collection of individual and collaborative artists' books by Ann Forbush, Ania Gilmore and Annie Zeybekoglu.

"Civil Rights Marchers Walking from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on Monday, March 23, 1965,'' photo by JAMES BARKER, in the show "Through the Lens of History: Selma & Civil Rights at the Grand Circle Gallery,'' Boston, through January.